


it's not because our hearts are large

by likewinning



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Comment Fic, M/M, pumpkin spice is not a season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-24 07:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2573333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/pseuds/likewinning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's learned a few things about Jason by now, and he's <em>pretty sure</em> he's not Batman. Alternate universe, set in the same verse as <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2255835">this</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2573234">this</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's not because our hearts are large

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my darling dearest [ohmcgee's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmcgee/pseuds/ohmcgee) birthday. Obviously, because who else would indulge in ridiculous coffee shop AUs with me? Won't make a whole lot of sense without the other two stories (won't make a whole lot of sense anyway). Title from Richard Siken.

Natasha corners him outside the coffee shop, three months after Jason actually, unequivocally, asks Bucky out. (This is several months after the first time they fuck around after Jason crashes at Bucky's place, a few weeks after Jason invites Bucky to a bar and accidentally gets him into a barfight, a ¬couple days after Jason tells Bucky some of the truth about where he comes from.)

She's on her smoke break, which she's supposed to take in the back of the building, but if Jason's learned anything about Natasha it's that she does what she wants.

Jason borrows her lighter, and as he starts to hand it back she grabs his wrist – tightly, tight enough Jason can feel every single bone from his wrist up to his shoulder – and says, "We need to have the talk."

So, okay, Jason's been expecting this one for a while, pretty much since he figured out Nat recognized him from that time she beat him to the punchline and killed Egon, but up until now she's been what passes, for Nat, for friendly.

Friendly isn't _easy_ for people like them.

"Okay," Jason says. He waits, and Natasha stares him down, so he lets out a breath and says, "You want me to tell you I'm not going to hurt him. I can't do that. I'm a fuck-up. Every time I go back home something explodes or someone dies and I'm pretty much fit to be around exactly no one."

Nat raises an eyebrow, squeezes him a little tighter. She's still using her other hand to smoke her cigarette, and she blows the smoke out the side of her mouth.

"Probably I'm gonna die bloody again someday," Jason says. He can't remember if Natasha knows he's been dead, but it's _Nat_. Jason just assumes she knows what color socks he's wearing and his favorite flavor of ice cream and every person he's ever slept with regardless of how much time she's spent with him. "But," he says, and Natasha's grip on him loosens, just a little. "I'm also crazy about him, and I'm really going to try not to fuck this up. I've never –" he starts, and Nat lets him go.

"Don't get mushy on me, Todd," she says, but there's this little tilt to her lips that Jason has learned, over the months, passes for a smile.

"Right," Jason says. His cigarette has burnt itself out. "So. Good talk."

Natasha rolls her eyes. "Just go inside and talk to your boyfriend, Jay. I'm on _break_."

"Maybe I wanted to visit _you_ ," Jason says, but he pulls the door open.

Natasha stops him again, this time with a hand on his shoulder, nothing like a threat at all. Sometimes Jason thinks she might actually like having him around. "You can tell him sometime, you know," she says. "He can handle it."

*

Bucky knows some things. He knows Jason shows up at his apartment, more often than not, with blood under his fingernails and bruises on his cheeks. He knows that if Jason stays the night, it's almost a guarantee that he'll wake Bucky up at four in the morning, shouting at no one and struggling with the bedsheets.

He knows that Jason's adopted but sort of estranged from his family (sort of estranged in that sometimes he rants about his brothers like they're the worst people in the world, and sometimes Jason gets a text and pauses whatever movie they're watching, whatever meal they're eating, whatever _anything_ and says, "Hey, family emergency, I gotta split") and that somehow, somehow he knows fucking _Batman_.

"Maybe _he's_ Batman," Steve suggests once when they're on the phone.

"Nah," Bucky says. "Too young. Batman's been around for years."

"So maybe there's been more than one." 

"Doubt it. Besides, Nat says she knows who the real Batman is and it's not Jason."

"That's a shame," Steve says. "Dating Batman would've been cool."

"Cooler than dating Captain America?" Bucky teases.

"Well, no," Steve jokes back. "That guy's an _icon_. Still," Steve adds. "I want to meet him."

"Who, Captain America? Are you having an identity crisis, Stevie?"

"Only every day of the week," Steve says. "But you know I meant Jason."

"Steve," Bucky says. It's not that Bucky doesn't think they'll get along. Pretty much _everyone_ likes Steve. It's just. Jason is kind of. _His_ in a way no one else has been.

"Come on," Steve says. "I promise not to hold him by the ankles and shake him for change."

"Good, because Nat already did that."

"If that's true I want the video of it."

"You know, if you came by the coffee shop more instead of running around town superheroing…"

"Yeah, yeah. Just invite me over for dinner with your boyfriend already, okay?"

*

"We don't have to," Bucky says. They're on the couch at Bucky's apartment, both sort of drunk and sort of watching some terrible slasher flick – sort of, because Jason's spent most of the movie explaining how easy the killer would be to dispatch – and they're talking, quietly, about Steve.

The thing is, Steve is this sort of myth in Jason's head, like Jason imagines Bruce might be to Bucky, if Bruce was an American hero and not sort of a self-righteous dick a lot of the time.

The thing is, Steve is this part of Bucky that Jason is achingly, seethingly jealous of sometimes – times when Jason's legs aren't wrapped around Bucky, when Bucky's thumbs aren't leaving bruises in Jason's skin, when Bucky isn't letting Jason into his apartment at three o'clock in the morning with no explanation except Jason needs somewhere to _stay_.

But the _thing_ is, Jason still wants to meet him. It's _Captain America_. He'd have to be fucking braindead _and_ crazy not to want to meet him.

"Is it because you think I'm gonna dump you and run off with him as soon as I meet him?" Jason asks. The slasher just killed his eighty-seventh victim or whatever and Jason ignores the movie in favor of sucking a hickey into Bucky's neck. Bucky says Nat makes fun of him for them, which is all the more reason to keep providing this service. "'Cause," Jason says. "I'm actually pretty loyal."

"You're not really his type," Bucky says, laughing. He tugs at Jason's hair a little and Jason scrapes his teeth against his skin before he asks, "What's that? Hot as fuck and crazy smart?"

"And so humble, too," Bucky adds. "If _that_ was his type, don’t you think he'd be with me instead?"

Jason – pauses. He wants to play along, but it's not like he hasn't thought about – that.

"Jay," Bucky says. There's a lot Bucky doesn't know about him, not yet, but he's gotten really fucking good at knowing what's going on in Jason's head.

Jason considers that a character flaw.

"It's cool," Jason says. He pulls back, just in time to see someone else get killed out of the corner of his eye. "I mean, I get it, I've –"

Bucky grabs him, pushes him in close and kisses him. It hurts, and Jason feels better. "It was a joke, Jason," Bucky says, and Jason twitches at the word like he twitches at the fucking punk with the green hair he sees come into Bucky's coffee shop sometimes, but he grins and means it. "Like I said," Bucky says. "We don't have to."

"Dude," Jason says. He climbs on top of Bucky, ignoring the screams behind them in favor of wrapping his limbs around Bucky. "It's Captain America. Of _course_ we have to."

"He really prefers Steve," Bucky says, but Jason's too busy doing other things with his mouth to reply.

*

"How you holding up, tiger?" Nat asks Bucky. She's in the middle of kicking his ass at Mario Kart, but she still has time to check in on him while Jason and Steve are in the kitchen cleaning up dinner.

Bucky's not trying to listen to their conversation or anything, but he'd recognize either of their laughs anywhere, and he can hear both.

"Good," Bucky says. "I mean, I don't know why I was even worried, it's just – oh come _on_ ," he says, because he's not just losing to Nat but to _everyone_.

"He's a good kid," Nat says, and then, "Why do you even _have_ this game if you're so terrible at it?"

"I like to give you ways to feel that you're better than I am," Bucky says. He throws the controller down, maybe a little more roughly than he has to, and turns to look at Nat. Her hair's up tonight in some fancy twist like they did anything classier for dinner than beer and pizza, and she gives him this smile that Bucky knows doesn't come out for just anyone.

"I know he is," Bucky says. "But –"

"Give him time," Nat says. "And meanwhile, I'm buying you a turtleneck for Christmas."

"Oh yeah," Jason says, walking back into the room with Steve right behind him. "I forgot to mention that I'm part-vampire," he tells Steve.

"See?" Steve says to Bucky. "He _could_ be Batman. Everyone knows Batman only goes out at night."

Jason starts choking on air, and Nat changes the subject by challenging Steve and Jason to a game since Bucky is "fucking useless, apparently."

It's the easiest family dinner Jason's ever been to.


End file.
